


Nowhere to stand and now nowhere to hide

by bluesargayent



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Mutants, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, if you couldn't tell by the length of it dear god, if you know what a mutant is then you have enough background knowledge to read this don't worry, mutant as in from the xmen universe, same story but artemis is a mutant, takes place pre- post- and during canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25083709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesargayent/pseuds/bluesargayent
Summary: “Oh, Frond,” Root reached an entirely new level of doneness. “Artemis Fowl’s a mutant.”
Relationships: Artemis Fowl II & Holly Short
Comments: 7
Kudos: 82





	Nowhere to stand and now nowhere to hide

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I watched Dark Phoenix on Thursday and spent the entire next three days working this, how'd you know?

Artemis woke to an angry Commander. Unsurprising, but still annoying. He rubbed his head as he sat up, but it was more because he expected an ache rather than felt an ache. In fact, he felt better than he had in a long time. Holly must have completely healed him while he was unconscious. 

He looked around the metal train car to thank the Captain but found her still unresponsive. In fact, Commander Root was covering her with his coat when he noticed Artemis had awoken. 

“Finally decided to face what you’ve done, huh?”

Artemis frowned, “Pardon? You’re alive, are you not?”

Root growled, “And Short nearly wasn’t! You drained the last of her magic.”

“Of course. But surely this is just exhaustion—she couldn’t have _died_ from pulling you two in.”

That was the wrong thing to say, which he realized when Root abandoned his officer in favor of shoving an accusatory finger in Artemis’s face. 

“Her trigger finger is clean off, Fowl! She’ll never shoot again, not with the LEP at least. And now that you’ve siphoned off her reserves, she's completely out of magic. Barely even stopped the bleeding.”

Artemis blinked. “Her finger?”

“Keep up, Fowl. Neither of us have the magic to fix it, and it’s because of you.”

“Her finger’s out there?” He asked, still slightly dazed, much to his annoyance. 

“What does it matter?” Root held Holly’s severed pointer finger up. “It might as well be.”

“We can leave now to Haven, or to where you can perform the ritual.”

Root just shook his head, “Won’t work.”

“We could…” Artemis frowned. Their options were limited and, unfortunately, he could think of only one idea that even had a chance of success. 

Artemis hadn’t planned on ever revealing his _talents_ to the good Commander. If he was honest, he wasn’t even completely sure it would work. Still, even though he hadn’t physically sliced off her finger, Holly had been hurt while helping him find his father. He couldn’t repay her by not even trying. 

Butler jumped down from the overpass. Artemis was pleased to see that at least his bodyguard was on his feet. 

“We’ve lost the goblins.”

The two people awake to hear this revelation breathed a sigh of relief. 

Then, Holly groaned, calling all attention back to her. 

Artemis allowed himself one moment, just one more moment, when Root would hate him simply because of the things he had done and not the things he couldn’t help. Then he held out his hand for the finger. 

“I have a plan.” He said. 

Root shook his head. “You’ve done enough, Fowl.”

“Let me try.” Artemis pursed his lips. “I want to help.”

Root snorted, but after Artemis kept his hand outstretched he relented. He passed the severed digit. 

“Artemis,” Butler said softly, “Are you sure?”

Artemis’s didn’t respond. The only sound for several moments was the train shaking underneath their feet. 

“Solid ground, first,” Butler decided. He was already plotting out their disembarkment, connecting them all to the Commander’s moonbelt and guiding them onto the icy plains. 

Once on solid land again, Root eyed the limp Holly. “This better work, Fowl.”

“I don’t suppose you’d consider turning the other way, Commander?”

He laughed. “Nope.”

Artemis sighed, but lowered himself onto the ground beside Holly. He moved her arm closer to him, feeling _wrong_ to be touching her unconscious body, _wrong_ to be doing this without her permission. 

He lined the finger up to its original resting place. It was time. It had been so long since he had dealt with a minor scratch, much less a cut through bone, but he refused to let the doubt cloud his mind. 

Technically, he was ambidextrous, but he typically found himself favoring his left hand, so he chose his right hand to lay on Holly’s. His pinky was approximately the size of her pointer, so he lined it up on top of hers.

When he looked over his shoulder, he could see Root and Butler still watching him as though he and Holly were the stars of some tragic television show. 

He closed his eyes. Then, he _reached_. 

He pushed through the chill and the ice to meet Holly. Her subconscious was strong but tired, and reluctant to allow Artemis access. He wasn’t used to wariness like this.

 _Please_ , he tried. _I can help_.

Holly didn’t quite get the message. To be fair, though, she was unconscious. 

He shut out whatever his companions were saying behind him and focused on opening himself to Holly. 

For a moment, he was afraid it wouldn’t work. Then, he screamed. 

Holly might have screamed too, he couldn’t tell, couldn’t focus on anything besides the pain, the _pain_. It was as if someone was simultaneously pulling his limbs off and stabbing him with a blunt knife. The pain outshadowed any hurt he had experienced in his life.

He fell to his side, barely registering the bodies that rushed towards him. 

He used all the energy he had left to lift his hand in front of his face. His pinky finger was gone, laying on the snow next to Holly.

It worked. 

Artemis smiled despite the rain of red covering his hand. He let Butler cauterize the wound with a fairy neutrino, too weak to protest even if he wanted to. 

Root looked from Holly, who was examining the recently reattached finger, to Artemis’s hand, newly decreased to four fingers. 

It clicked. 

“You’re one of them.” 

Artemis nodded. He would talk later, when his brain quit buzzing. 

“Oh, Frond,” Root reached a new level of doneness. “Artemis Fowl’s a mutant.”

* * *

Artemis Fowl was many things. A genius. A criminal. A primary editor for Wikipedia. 

He was also a mutant. 

His intelligence alone had sparked mutant concerns from his parents, but many a specialist had assured them that a high IQ was nothing to worry about. 

“Might even cure mutantism, he might!” One doctor laughed. Artemis never forgot that laugh, or the way his parents had politely joined in. 

Later, he had wrung his hands, alone in his room. 

The first person he told was Butler. Obviously. 

Well, he didn’t exactly tell the manservant. More like, Artemis, age five, had waited until Butler had burned himself on the stove when momentarily distracted. Butler moved to the sink to run water over his wound. 

“Butler!” Artemis cried. He had spent quite a bit of time figuring out the logistics behind the strange impulses he occasionally felt and was excited to share. “Come here!”

“Just a moment,” Butler replied, letting the water relieve his pain. The burn wasn’t bad; his instincts forced him to jerk away before too much damage was done. Only a red swell the size of a coin remained. 

“Butler!” Artemis cried again. Juliet, just transitioning from accidentally annoying little sister to purposefully annoying little sister, decided to join him. Butler sighed, but walked over to the wooden table where the two sat. 

“You’re hurt,” Artemis said. He reached out in the direction of Butler.

“Only a tiny burn,” Butler lifted his hand to display the injury on the outside edge of his palm. He paused, before identifying the educational value of the situation. “I ran cold water over the burn to help it heal. Burns like cold water.”

“You’re hurt,” Artemis repeated, waving his hand. He didn’t know how to explain the draw he was feeling, as if Butler was reaching his own hand out to him, so he just said, “Give me.”

Butler let the boy take his hand. Artemis had always been an intense child, and he stared at Butler’s wound like it was a puzzle and the key was somehow hidden inside of it. 

Suddenly, Artemis laid his hand directly on top of the burn. Butler gasped in pain. 

Artemis did the same. 

When Butler withdrew his hand, he flipped it over several times in confusion. 

“I fixed it,” Artemis grinned. He held up his own hand and, sure enough, a coin-sized burn now appeared where his palm had overlapped Butler’s. 

Butler felt his heart drop. 

Artemis’s smile faded. 

Juliet asked what was for dinner.

“How did you do that?” Butler asked. He wanted to pull his sister away from the--from Artemis. But it was _Artemis_ , the boy he had read fairy tales to and who loved listing off the elements that made up random objects. He couldn’t be a mutant.

Artemis shrugged. “You were asking me to, so I did.”

“I wasn’t asking you to.”

“Not with your words.” The boy frowned now and made several not-so-helpful hand gestures. “You were hurt.”

“Me next!” Juliet cried, extending her arm into Artemis’s face. 

“No, Juliet,” Butler forced himself to look at his charge’s worried blue eyes. “Artemis and I are going to show off his new trick to his parents now.”

Juliet rolled her eyes. As soon as the other two were out of the room, she scribbled a mean-looking caricature of her brother onto her coloring sheet. Then she drew a French mustache on him.

* * *

His parents weren’t exactly pleased, but they didn’t threaten to abandon him on the side of the road, already putting themselves in the better half of parents of mutants. 

Artemis showed them the trick, absorbing a small pinprick Butler gave himself, before being ushered out of the room. He sat outside while the adults talked.

They were quiet, like they normally were when they talked about mutants. Or about him.

Butler emerged first. He placed a hand on the young Fowl’s shoulder and nodded at him.

“It was a cool trick, Artemis.”

And Artemis understood he wasn’t meant to repeat the cantrip.

* * *

His parents disliked discussing his _talents_. Butler would humor him when the boy brought up the topic, but changed the channel whenever mutants were mentioned by the news, usually in the context of some sort of violence. Juliet, on the other hand, was fascinated.

She was three years older than him (four, once her birthday passed) and was waiting until some power of her own would show up.

“I hope it’s super-jumping,” she told him. “Then, if someone attacked me, I’d just jump super high and land on them!” She sprung into the air as if to demonstrate. It was a higher leap than most nine year-olds could manage, but not exactly of mutant proportions.

“You can’t hide that, though,” Artemis pointed out, ever the practical child.

“I don’t want to hide it. I’d be a superhero and get kittens out of trees and stuff.”

“You can’t tell anyone you have powers, otherwise they’ll put you on their lists.”

“Lists?”

Artemis nodded. He, during his long hours on the Internet, had read all about this on various forums. “They want to put mutants on lists, so they can track them at all times. Then, when they have a method to control them, they’ll hunt them down and force them to fight for the United States government.”

“That’s not fair. Are they going to make you fight for them?”

Artemis shook his head. “I’m not a mutant.”

Juliet rolled her eyes. “You’re lying. There’s no lists.”

“Yes, there is! They look at--,”

But Juliet had become annoyed at that point. “Can you do anything else?”

“Pardon?”

She grabbed his hand and examined it up close. “You can take Butler’s injuries. Can you give your injuries away?”

Artemis hadn’t considered that.

“Let’s try it!” Juliet was already scanning the room for a pair of craft scissors. Typically, craft scissors were designed specifically not to cause injury, but the engineers had not taken into account the shear determination of a child Butler.

“I’m not supposed to,” Artemis said. He didn’t usually take ‘don’t’ as a stopping point, but this time he was glad for the order. He wasn’t scared. He just wasn’t supposed to practice.

“Please?” Juliet asked. “I won’t tell! I promise!” 

Artemis shook his head.

“Come on, you do tons of experiments! It’s just an experiment.”

That was true. 

It was just him and Juliet in the parlor room while Butler cooked dinner. No one else but the crackling fireplace and red upholstered loveseats. He held his hand out to Juliet, who wasted no time in pinching the skin off between his thumb and first finger.

“Ow!” he cried. 

Juliet lined up the same part of their hands. “Now what?”

Artemis shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“How do you do it the normal way?”

It was hard to find the right words. Everything else Artemis experienced had been documented by any number of people in the past, but this skill seemed as though the words hadn’t been invented yet to describe it.

“I don’t do much. The injury wants to come to me, so I,” he paused, “make a bridge.” _No, that wasn’t it._ “I guide it.” _No_. “I, ah, invite it.”

Juliet closed her eyes, deep in concentration.

Artemis followed suit, trying to push the wound away from himself and onto Juliet, but it felt wrong. Juliet didn’t want the pain, didn’t need it. It was all Artemis’s.

He gave up before Juliet did.

“Oh. Do you think you can super-jump, then?”

* * *

When his parents sent him off to his first year at St. Bartleby’s, he pretended it would be like going to Charles Xavier’s School, where he would be surrounded by others like him. 

Needless to say, that was not the case. 

It was that first year, though, that he met his first real-life mutant. 

He was older, probably four years Artemis’s elder, but he was one of the students that volunteered to do crafts with Artemis’s class in their free time. 

At this point, there were more people who knew about Artemis’s talents than there were times he had performed them. Perhaps it would have been different if his skill was simply healing others. Taking someone’s pain away was admirable, but, unfortunately, that pain had to go somewhere. Situations where the benefits outweighed the costs were far and few between, so he generally was hesitant to demonstrate his skills.

Cian, on the other hand, was unconcerned in only the way another member of the top 1% could be. He had sticky fingers--literally--and had no qualms about showing them off to generate a laugh from his schoolmates. 

Artemis would often look over to see him holding a desk an inch off the ground, held in place by only his hand laid flat upon the surface, much to the delight of Artemis’s classmates. After school, occasionally James would run down the hall announcing whatever impossible part of the school Cian had chosen to scale today.

If Artemis was jealous (which he wasn’t), he didn’t let it show. Instead, he rolled his eyes when he heard anyone mention Cian’s gifts.

Because Cian had gifts. Gifts implied desirability. Artemis had talents. 

The two had only ever spoken once. Back in that first year of schooling, Artemis was avoiding his classmates, watching them divide up into teams from the top row of the gym bleachers after classes had ended. Predictably, Cian was chosen first.

“No fair!” The other captain yelled. “Cian can’t be on your team!”

The first captain stuck out his tongue.

“Cian can’t play--he has powers!”

“I won’t use them, promise!” Cian said in his defense. The boys ignored him, instead shouting back and forth over who deserved the mutant.

Mr. Connely, the supervising teacher, walked over.

“Do you mind sitting this one out, Cian?”

Cian looked as though he really did mind. He walked over to the bleachers and punched them in frustration. Artemis could feel the pain of his bruising knuckles.

It was distracting, the pain. That was the only reason Artemis made his way down. 

He sat beside Cian and ignored how the older boy frowned at him, still frustrated.

“You shouldn’t be so open with your talents.” Artemis said.

“What do you know?” Cian scowled. “They’re mine, so I’m going to use them.”

“But people judge you because of it.”

“That says more about them than it does about me.” Cian shot back, in a way of speaking evident that he was repeating some other person’s words.

Artemis didn’t respond. He put his hand on top of Cian’s and drew the soreness up into his palm.

Cian jerked his hand out. “Go away, Fowl.”

Artemis complied. He didn’t think Cian noticed what he had done. Somehow, he was slightly disappointed. 

Later, he was relieved the boy hadn’t realized. He didn’t need to worry about anyone else spilling his secret.

One of the parents must have complained to the school, however, because the next year Cian was gone.

* * *

When his father disappeared, Artemis wished he had any talent other than the one he was stuck with. He could have controlled the metal in the Fowl Star, preventing it from sinking. He could have controlled the frigid weather conditions, giving his father and the Major a fighting chance while rescue teams searched. He could have glimpsed into the future and cut off the expedition before it even began.

Now, he couldn’t even help his mother. There is only so much grief a child can take on, especially when already dealing with grief of their own.

* * *

In a way, once you accepted the reality of mutant humans, fairies weren’t that big a stretch.

* * *

Artemis changed a lot in the three years since his father’s disappearance. At first, it wasn’t quite for the better, but now he hoped he was someone his father could be proud of. 

But Artemis was not the only one who had changed.

After laying out the law on how things were going to be different now, how the Fowls were going to become good people, how good people was apparently synonymous with law-abiding, the conversation inevitably turned to the topic neither of them particularly wanted to discuss.

“What happened to your hand?” Artemis Senior asked, his voice soft and careful, not like Artemis Junior remembered.

Artemis forced himself not to hide the damaged limb behind his back. “There was an accident.”

“What happened?”

Artemis’s first instinct was to lie. It was so easy. But, in the end, he was a child who wanted his father to be proud and, for some reason, helping people was what did that now.

“A...friend was helping me with a project, when I heard the news about your recovery. A door closed on her hand and, well, she needed that finger more than I needed this one.”

Artemis Senior took a moment to process this. “You told someone about your _gifts_?”

Immediately, he regretted not lying. “A friend. I, ah, have a friend, Father.”

“I don’t suppose people with your gifts have suddenly become accepted by the world in the few years I’ve been gone?”

“No, Father,” Artemis looked down. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“I love you, son. I want you to be safe. Mixing up with the people I used to mix up with is one thing, but the second someone gets wind of your gifts--”

“I know.” Artemis replied. He didn’t plan on using his talents again, anyways. Maybe if he avoided reminding his father of it, the man wouldn’t be too angry when Artemis went behind his back a couple times. He had a few projects in the back of his mind that would be a shame to abandon now. 

His father, oblivious, smiled.

* * *

Before Artemis knew it, he sat scanning the parking lot outside the London cryogenics lab. Waiting. He pressed his hands against his ears, trying to block out the sound of Butler’s subconscious reaching out to him. The whispers were fading, but Artemis couldn’t enjoy the relief when he knew the reason they were weakening.

When Holly appeared, he couldn’t have been more grateful. But then she refused to help.

Artemis used every argument available to convince her to at least _try_. For Butler. She had to try.

She had shot back with, can’t _you_ try?

Artemis examined the ground. Then he tugged his suit jacket open slightly. His shirt was tinted red, as though a rose was blossoming out from his chest. “It was too much.” 

Holly agreed to help.

* * *

By the time all was said and done in Chicago and Artemis had returned to the Lower Elements as promised, it was much too late to reattach the finger he had lost half a year ago, even with fairy technology. Instead, Foaly had rooted through the human’s memories until he had found an experiment Artemis performed that had the potential to cost him a digit. He was afraid he’d have to fake a human medical record for the boy, but thankfully Artemis had done that himself in order to explain the injury to his mother.

Foaly should have been glad to have the human (not even a human, a _mutant_ ) out of his mane, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit sad to let the boy go.

* * *

When Holly explained to him the life he had lost to the mindwipe, it was certainly overwhelming. The facts were completely outlandish, but somehow felt right. They filled the gaps that Artemis hadn’t even realized existed.

And she knew things she couldn’t possibly have known about him.

“I healed you?” He asked, hesitating for the first time in accepting her story.

Holly nodded. She laid her hand flat on the table, leaving her fingers outstretched. Artemis let himself lay his own hand on top of hers, lining his missing pinky finger up to her pointer finger. 

“Why would I do that?”

For once, Holly didn’t have an answer for him. She shrugged. Then, she returned to spinning her fairy tales.

* * *

Minerva was a clever child. He should have seen this coming.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” She said.

Artemis paused. He knew he shouldn’t become too invested in the conversation, but curiosity won out.

“You first,” he said.

She grinned, and Artemis experienced several emotions. He ignored all of them.

Minerva grabbed her mug of tea from the table and held it over the edge. Then, she dropped it.

Artemis instinctively moved his feet away from the area the mug would land, but the shattering of ceramic never came. Instead, the cup had landed exactly where Minerva had taken it from. 

If it hadn’t been for the slight sloshing of the tea, it would appear that nothing had occurred.

“Incredible,” he breathed. “Does it only work on inanimate objects? Must you touch them to move them?”

Suddenly, her fascination with demons, who rarely adhered to the typical laws of time and space, made sense. It was hard to learn the limits of your abilities when the only available teachers made choosing a side in a manufactured conflict their requirement for tutelage. Artemis understood her urge to take advantage of the situation. He may have done the same if he was in her situation a few years ago. Not for the first time, he felt bad for deceiving her in her own home.

“Not so fast,” Minerva took a sip of her drink. “Your turn.” 

Fair was fair.

“You have pain. Your right shoulder, I believe. Perhaps you bruised it on a doorway.”

Minerva felt her shoulder. “Cabinet, actually.”

“May I?” Artemis reached across the table.

“You should know, my bodyguard will not hold back if you try anything.”

“I would expect no less.”

Minerva let him lay his hand on her shoulder. In a different situation, he would have preferred the bruise to land on a part of his body less frequently used than his palm, but to line up his forearm would be awkward and made it obvious that his action would come with a cost. He wasn’t ready to reveal that part yet.

Unfortunately, it would be another three years before he would have that chance again.

* * *

He wasn’t sure if he should tell his brothers about his talents. On one hand, it would make hiding his fairy exploits easier if he could chalk up any oddities to superhuman abilities. On the other, well, for all their intelligence, Myles and Beckett were still kids, and kids talk. He didn’t need Professor X showing up at his door because one of the twins let slip that Artemis could heal with his mind. 

When he mentioned his dilemma to Butler, the man had told him that the decision should be whatever Artemis was comfortable with. Very unhelpful. 

Artemis had refrained from sharing the first couple months after he returned home. To be honest, he was spending all his catching up from his three year hiatus. Technology was advancing faster and faster, Foaly had left Artemis’s old security framework completely useless against his updates, and he was still lost on how he was to fill his role of older brother. 

Like now, for instance. Artemis was sitting outside with his brothers, supervising them as they ‘dug a hole to the center of the Earth.’ They had chosen a seemingly random spot of dirt, which Artemis then checked for buried electrical lines before retreating a couple steps back to watch under the shade of the nearest tree. If Artemis had any experience at all in being an older sibling, he would have known it was only a matter of time before the peace fell apart. 

Sure enough, Myles slipped and fell into his brother. Beckett turned and swung his plastic shovel at Myles, causing Myles to fall and nick his leg on a rock they had dug out of the dirt. 

Myles, distraught, began bawling. Beckett, not one to stand by in silence, followed suit. 

Artemis froze. Juliet was out for the day, and his parents were working out inside, unable to hear him if he were to call. 

“What’s wrong?” He tried. They ignored him. Hesitantly, he inched forward. His brothers stumbled over themselves to wrap their arms around him and he awkwardly hugged back. 

“Beckett h-HURT me!” Myles cried. He rubbed his nose on Artemis’s shirt. That would have to be dry cleaned. 

Artemis slowly drew back and examined Myle’s cut. It was only a small nick at the top of his ankle. It couldn’t have hurt much, but once the twins got started they tended to work themselves up until Juliet or father found a way to distract them. Today, it would have to be Artemis that fixed it. 

He pulled his own pant leg up slightly, leaving enough skin exposed that he could touch it to Myles. While the injury did not need to be transferred to the exact same spot on Artemis’s body, he had learned over the years that it was much easier the closer it was to the original site. He succeeded in confusing Myles enough to momentarily stop crying when he pressed his ankle to the cut. 

And he _pulled_ the injury into his self. 

“All better! See?”

Myles sniffled. Then started crying again. “You’re hurt too!”

Artemis pulled his pant leg down over the wound and almost groaned. 

“I’m fine, Myles. And you’re fine too! Beckett knocked you off balance by mistake and I’m sure he’s very sorry about it.” He shot a pointed look to the third Fowl. 

“I’m sorry,” Beckett said. 

Myles’s tears began to slow. 

“What will help you feel better, Myles?”

“Can we have a snack?”

That was something Artemis could do, provided the snacks did not require extensive assembly. He stood and his brothers quickly latched on to his hands. 

Artemis didn’t realize until later that his brothers were probably the first people who looked at him the exact same after they learned about his abilities. It was nice.

* * *

The addition of fairy magic was unexpected. 

When he used his normal abilities, his charitable acts never felt like giving. He took the pain and kept it all for himself, almost selfishly. Like, even when he was physically injuring himself for someone, it was only to get the whispering of pain to stop. The generosity only hid the selfishness of the act.

Using the magic felt like giving. Even when he was _mesmerizing_ his parents, heart wracked with guilt, the magic felt _right_. Even when he desperately pushed the last sparks onto his mother, in hopes of saving her from the disease she had contracted because of him.

It didn’t work. 

He could feel her pain, but not her illness. Suddenly the magic didn’t feel right, either. It must have corrupted his talents, because whenever he tried to pull the sickness away, it refused. It was almost like it didn’t exist.

Once again, his talents were useless. It was a good thing he had other tricks up his sleeve.

* * *

Nowadays, the pain was everywhere. He could feel it whenever his family looked in his direction. Was he really that much a disappoint to them? 

Well, Myles and Beckett didn’t feel that way, but they kept standing in the wrong order when they talked and Artemis was getting tired of telling them to rearrange. They were probably doing it on purpose, anyways, just to give him a headache. 

The joke was on them, though, because he had a headache all the time now. 

Being around other people was torture. Their pain called out to him, unlike it ever had before. It seemed that whatever he said or did would just cause it to intensify. 

He spent most of his time in his room, working on The Project, save for once a day when he would reluctantly accompany Butler to the gym. 

He didn’t care about the mutants who pretended to care about other mutants when all they wanted was power. He didn’t care about those people who took advantage of others. He wished he could stop taking advantage of others. 

He needed to do something completely unselfish in order to make up for all the selfish things he did during his life. But was it really unselfish if he was doing it to ease his guilt? By that logic, everything he did was selfish. 

He clicked his pen twenty times. 

He didn’t care for politicians with their ulterior motives or CEOs with their self-obsessions. He didn’t care for his classmates at St. Bartleby’s who called Cian a freak behind his back or Jon Spiro, who profited off stoking mutant paranoia. 

He didn’t care for the way Butler looked at him when he struggled to make his words add up to an appropriate number. 

He was causing his family so much pain. If he could just save the world, then maybe they would look at him with pride instead of pity. The pain would disappear, and, for once, not because he took it.

And so he slept less and studied more. And if he happened to ignore his phone when it rang, or his family when they called him down to dinner, then it was all for a just cause. 

He was Artemis Fowl, and for once in his life he was going to make his family proud.

* * *

The spaceship was laughing at him. Wait—no, Foaly was laughing at him. No—the spaceship. Spaceships couldn’t talk (no noise in space). Delusion-generated spaceships probably could, though. 

The numbers would protect him. He waggled his fingers at the incoming projectile, only to realize that, with the loss of his pinky, he only had nine fingers. 

Holly must have planned that. Tricked him into giving up his finger, preparing for this moment even all those years ago. 

But why would Holly do that? They were friends. 

Artemis shook his head. Not friends. He continued shaking it. Everytime he healed someone, he came to regret it. Why would he suffer for the sake of someone else? There was no one deserving of his sacrifice.

“Five!” He shouted. “One, two, three, four, five!”

He wanted to bury himself in the snow and cover his ears. He could still feel the pain of the half dozen officers who had died seconds earlier. At least one was still alive, just barely, his whispers biting Artemis’s heels. Combined with the wind whipped up by the spaceship, Artemis couldn’t hope to focus on anything that wasn’t right in front of him. 

It was too much, everyone was asking too much of him. He was only fifteen and he had just saved the world, for Frond’s sake. He could only take so much pain. 

They wanted his special talents. That had to be it. He said that out loud. They weren’t going to get them. He said that aloud, too. 

Then he noticed his left hand was also missing a pinky finger. When had that happened? Did Holly cut it off in his sleep? Butler must have let her in. They knew what they had cursed him with. 

No, it was back again. Wait, it was gone. 

He couldn’t have eight fingers. Ten was ideal. Nine was okay. Eight was asking to be crushed to death by a spaceship. 

He continued shouting multiples of five at the spacecraft, cries eventually muffled as he stuck his thumb into his mouth and tried to bite it off. Seven was better than eight. 

It was genuinely a relief when Holly shot him.

* * *

Orion could do things Artemis had never been willing to try.

How else could he offload his frustrations onto the rest of the crew? Orion didn’t need his numbers to line up when he could simply _push_ his troubles onto his friends, diluting the obsession amongst the three of them until they all were unconsciously tapping fives under the table, but generally unplagued by the number gods.

He hoped his friends wouldn’t figure out what he was doing, but if they were his friends they wouldn’t mind. They’d want him to get better. 

Plus, pain never forced itself to where it was unwanted. If Holly and Foaly accepted it, that meant they didn’t mind. They were part of a team.

He ignored Artemis shouting at him from inside their head. 

It wasn’t that Orion didn’t respect their original personality. It was just that he strongly disagreed with his opinions and how he lived his life. And he didn’t feel like arguing right now. Questing parties had to be united if they had any chance of defeating their enemies.

 _This isn’t a quest!_ Artemis cried. _This is real life._

Orion wanted to ask why it couldn’t be both.

If Artemis had his way, the pain would be completely his own burden to bear. That was foolish--one person couldn’t hold the pain of the world. Unless maybe a secret birthmark would unlock their hidden strength? Orion would come back to that later.

* * *

Alongside the obsessions and the delusions and the harmful coping mechanisms, he and Dr. Argon would talk a lot about pain. Artemis’s pain--the pain that was his own, and the pain that he took on. 

Argon was by no means an expert in human mutantism, but he did his research and even found a specialist to consult from aboveground. Later, he’d refer Artemis to her once he was deemed stable enough to cut back to weekly sessions.

Artemis didn’t like to admit it, but simply talking about his talents with someone who wouldn’t judge him for revising his words several times was refreshing. No one wanted to talk about mutantism aboveground, and explaining the effects his power had on him was a feat unto itself.

He actually called himself a mutant for the first time in Dr. Argon’s office. It felt like both an intense political statement and a relief.

* * *

Sometimes, Artemis would use his abilities. Sometimes he wouldn’t. The difference now was that he knew no one expected it of him.

* * *

“Why’d you do it?” Holly asked one night. It was one of her calmer visits, where the world wasn’t in imminent danger and she could simply sit in silence on the rooftop, next to her friend.

Artemis looked out past the rose gardens below them. He didn’t need to ask what she meant; she had been staring at his stub of a pinky finger. 

A regrown finger was not the easiest to explain away, so Foaly had cut it off the clone hand before Artemis had reawakened, albeit a few millimeters above the original cut. Indistinguishable to anyone who hadn’t lived with it for two years.

Artemis thought back to that day on the train, when Holly loathed him on principle, and he had been convinced that the Russian field trip would be the most exciting excursion of his life. Oh, how times had changed.

It hadn’t been easy losing a finger. His words per minute took a severe hit and he had to relearn the fingering for all his favorite Sonatas. It certainly hadn’t helped his already weak grip strength. It was an injury not easily hidden, drawing attention Artemis did not necessarily want. Every time he shook someone’s hand, he could feel them physically holding back their questions. He knew all of this would happen, and, yet, he still made that decision he could never take back. 

He did not dwell on the what-ifs. 

“You were hurt,” he said finally. “I fixed it.”

“You didn’t have to.” Holly replied. She curled the finger she almost lost. 

“I don’t think a finger for my family was too much to ask.” 

She looked at him, reminding her friend that not everything in life was a business transaction. 

Artemis lifted a hand to the golden coin that permanently hung around his neck. 

“The same reason you agreed to heal my mother even after I kidnapped you, I suppose.” 

The air smelled sweet around them, like death or flowers. The pain wasn’t gone. Guilt from his past and lingering whispers from the other people home at the time crept across his skin. Still, Artemis knew his limit. 

“How could I not?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism is always welcomed and I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> The title is from Dust Bowl Dance by Mumford & Sons, a song that has no business being associated with rich brat Artemis Fowl, but I liked this lyric so my apologies to M&S.
> 
> I was so excited to include Minerva in here! Originally, I wanted her to have some sort of time-manipulation, but I quickly realized that would cause too many Lost Colony plot complications. I still like the space manipulation I ended up with!
> 
> As for Artemis's mutant ability, obviously I first thought of something akin to Professor X or Jean Gray's (Grey's?) but I decided Artemis with mind control was honestly terrifying and I liked the possibilities created by the one I chose instead.
> 
> Also, if anyone is curious, 29 out of the 6,293 words of this are 'finger' and 38 of them are 'hand.' If this is a problem, it's certainly not mine anymore.
> 
> Talk to me on my brand new tumblr!! [@bluesargayent](https://bluesargayent.tumblr.com/)


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